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Archives for April 2015

Despite being frustrated at times with Miss One’s overly discerning tastes, I am amazed at how today’s kids are so much more advanced and adventurous with their food than we were at their age. I would’ve been in my late teens before I tried my first sushi while my Miss One had her first taste pretty much as soon as she started solids at 5 months! And she took to it instantly! So our local sushi restaurant, Sushi Man, has become one of our most frequented favourites — it’s one restaurant when Miss One will happily sit (yes! they have high chairs) for more than five minutes. And sushi is particularly great as finger food (Miss One can feed herself so I get to eat at the same time as everyone else – bonus!) as well as being healthy.

So I decided to try my hand at making my own sushi rolls and make them a tad healthier (often, there is a lot of mayonnaise in the store bought ones). I bought some sushi rice, rice wine vinegar, seaweed and a sushi mat and I was set.

I followed the instructions for cooking the rice on the packet and it worked well, so that is what I have included in the recipe. To make the rolls bub-friendly I didn’t use as much vinegar and sugar as other recipes, but this is something you can adjust to your own taste. For the filling I used avocado and tinned tuna which is quite a common combo (and one I know Miss One enjoys).

I must say making sushi rolls was far easier than I had expected – it all stayed together, the texture of the rice seemed right, I didn’t tear the seaweed and the best thing is Miss One seemed to enjoy it as much as Sushi Man’s!!!! Woohoo!!! Next time I will be more adventurous and make some adult ones for us — yay, an easy meal for the whole family!

Unfortunately this is not a recipe that keeps well, the rice does harden and dry when refrigerated so I suggest making just enough for the immediate meal. The recipe I have given makes two sushi rolls (i.e. two seaweed sheets).

An easy healthy finger food for your kidlets – great for lunch or even as an afternoon snack after school

Ingredients

1 cup sushi rice

1 cup water

4 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoon caster sugar

1/2 ripe avocado

150g tinned tuna (I used the springwater variety)

2 sheets of seaweed

bamboo sushi mat (these are easily found in Asian grocery stores)

Instructions

Wash and rinse rice until the water runs clear.

In a medium saucepan, add the rice and water and bring to a boil for 3 minutes, then reduce to a medium heat. When the water is almost all absorbed, reduce to a low heat and cook for another 5 minutes.

Pour the rice wine vinegar and sugar into the rice and mix thoroughly. Turn off the heat and let the rice stand for 15 minutes with a lid on.

In the meantime, prepare the filling. Simply cut the avocado into long strips about 0.5cm wide. Mash the tuna chunks with a fork.

Place a sheet of seaweed (shiny side down) on the bamboo sushi mat. Spread the rice in a thin layer evenly over the seaweed using a flat knife or spatula, leaving a 4cm edge uncovered on one side.

About 3cm from the opposite side, arrange the avocado in a row on top of the rice. Spread the tuna in a row alongside the avocado.

Brush the uncovered seaweed strip with a little water to help it stick. Starting at the side with the filling, use the bamboo mat to start rolling the sushi all the way up the uncovered strip. Pat down firmly where the seaweed joins.

Cut crosswise into slices with a wet knife and voila! Your own sushi rolls!

Frittatas are a such a wonderfully easy way to feed guests. They can work at any meal, cook quickly, and the eggy base can take on so many flavours. In this case we have a triumvirate of taste: a sweet leek base, a fresh basil hit all laced with a little luxury: saffron. I know these gorgeous red threads are ridiculously expensive, but if handled correctly you only need a tiny bit to permeate an entire dish with their wonderful, unique flavour. The key is to steep the threads in warm liquid: I usually use water but opted for milk here for a little extra creaminess. Just look at the colour!

This pinch of threads is only about a quarter of a tiny packet, less than $2 worth, and the flavour was amazing!

A few tips for this frittata:

I’ve included fried potato to turn this into a meal of its own. With a side salad, and perhaps a little bread, this makes a perfect lunch. To simplify the recipe (and cut the cooking time) you can leave out the potato and you still have a wonderful breakfast or side.

If you’re really in a hurry you can cheat further and mostly cook the frittata on the stovetop, almost like an omelet, then transfer to the grill to brown the top. It will cook in just a few minutes!

Always remove a frittata from the oven when it is slightly underdone as it will continue to cook in the hot pan. If you overcook it the eggs dry out and ruin the texture.

This is a versatile dish, so don’t be afraid to experiment!

Leek Saffron and Basil Frittata

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

2 leeks, halved lengthwise then sliced into 1cm pieces.

2 waxy potatoes, diced into 1cm cubes

6 eggs

1/4 cup milk

Pinch of saffron

Small handful basil, finely chopped (reserve a few leaves for the top of the frittata)

50g butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Heat milk to just below boiling and add saffron threads. Allow to stand and infuse while you prepare the other ingredients.

Melt 35g butter with 1/2 a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over a low heat. Fry leeks gently, stirring regularly, until translucent and tender (about 10 minutes). Set aside.

The in-laws’ fig tree is in full season now and we are spoiled with an abundance of beautiful fresh fruit. I decided that I should use some in a cake for a change, and had all sorts of ideas lined up before I hit the fridge … and saw we had almost no butter (gasp!). Leaving aside how we could ever be so lax as to let this happen, the problem was compounded by the fact that this was on Good Friday and the shops were closed!

Luckily, just a few weeks before, I had baked my first ever yoghurt cake: my Zest Test of the London Bakes Lemony Yoghurt Cake. Yoghurt and olive oil to the rescue! My recipe, though heavily based on this original, is tweaked to be slightly less sweet and more structured so it can accommodate the figs. The idea to throw in a bit of rosemary came from this amazing looking Honey and Rosemary Upside Down Fig Cake on Delicious Everyday. So with thanks to my fellow bloggers for their ideas, this Fig and Rosemary Yoghurt cake was born!

The results are gorgeous. Just like the original Lemony version on London Bakes this cake is amazingly moist and moorish, and the hint of rosemary laced through works brilliantly. It’s one of those little additions that delights and surprises on first taste — people will be asking you what is in this cake! 🙂

Fig and Rosemary Yoghurt Cake

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 50 mins

Total time: 1 hour 5 mins

A moist and moorish cake topped with delicate figs and laced with a rosemary surprise.

Ingredients

175g caster sugar

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

125g almond meal

50g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

180g greek or other natural yoghurt

120ml extra virgin olive oil

2 large eggs

For the top:

4 figs, trimmed and halved lengthwise

2 tablespoons brown sugar

To serve:

Fresh figs, quartered (optional)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line a loaf tin with baking paper (I recommend using a piece large enough lay right across the tin hanging out two sides so you can lift the cake out).

Add the caster sugar and rosemary to a large mixing bowl. Mash together with your fingertips to infuse some rosemary flavour in the sugar.

Add the almond meal, flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.

Whisk the eggs and add them to the mixture along with the yogurt and olive oil. Stir until thoroughly combined.

Pour the batter into the lined loaf tin, then arrange the fig halves, cut side up, on top of the cake.

Bake for 30 minutes, then quickly remove from the oven to top each of the fig halves with a pinch of brown sugar before returning to bake until browned and cooked through, roughly another 20 minutes.

When done carefully remove the cake from the tin (it can stick a little, so run a knife along the edges) and cool on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes before serving.

With the colder weather approaching and with it the perpetual cycle of germs brought home from daycare, I think you will find this recipe very handy to nurse the poorly darlings.

It was a testing weekend with bubby contracting conjunctivitis and hubby debilitated by a mysterious bug that was even worse than the dreaded “Man Flu” (Yes! now you understand what kind of weekend I had! :)) So I was left holding the fort together with my trusty stead, Mozart the not-so-mini schnauzer who was very good with emotional support.

Miss One also seemed to have lost her appetite and it was a real struggle to get her to take enough fluids. Being a first time mum, I even umm’ed and ahh’ed several times about whether to take her to hospital in the middle of the night as I was concerned about her being dehydrated. Luckily she came around the next morning and accepted some milk so I waited till the medical centre opened to see the GP.

This bout of illness in our household was the prompt for this chicken soup recipe – chicken soup is well known miracle comfort food for illness after all, especially if it’s named after some female relative. I almost called it “the Cheat’s chicken soup” or “the lazy mum’s chicken soup” but it just lacked the cosiness of something like Nanna Rosie or Aunt Dotty and also I decided to cut myself and all the busy mums out there a bit of slack. We should be kinder to ourselves and give ourselves credit for getting dinner on the table while juggling everything else, especially sick kids (and husbands)! So Busy Mummy’s chicken and corn soup it is!

This is a simple soup but it does the job – Miss One loved it and I got some good stuff into her – fluid and all. She seems to resort to moist foods when she’s unwell and soups seem to be a hit.

So where I “cheat” is using a Campbell’s chicken and corn tinned soup as the soup base. Instead of following the instructions on the tin, I mix it with 1.5 tins of water, followed by all the fresh ingredients – corn kernels, shiitake mushrooms and chicken. That’s where it ends for the soup served for bubs.

But to make it a little more special for the grown-ups (and sick husbands!), I prepared ginger matchsticks and coriander leaves to be added to the soup as desired. So result is that I had personalised chicken soup for both my sick DD and DH. And then the next day, I added some cooked rice to the soup for Miss One to give it a bit more bulk and she happily ate that too. Happy days.

So next time your loved ones need a bit of comfort food to nurse their colds, give this a go.

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Baby Zest – A Busy Mum’s Chicken & Corn Soup

Recipe Type: soup

Author: Jane Sankey

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 12 mins

Total time: 17 mins

Serves: 6 cups

A quick and easy chicken soup to comfort the little bub when she needs that extra cuddle

Sprouts have the power to divide families: much hated by those that had a soggy, bitter, sad version forced upon them in childhood. To the unfortunates I say: give sprouts another chance! When cooked well they are delicious: either sautéed in butter until just tender or in this case roasted at high temperature until charred and nutty. They also pair excellently with everyone’s favourite salty treats like bacon, inspiring this combination with crispy fried bits of chorizo. Buy a good quality chorizo that packs plenty of flavour and cook it until you have concentrated crispy bits of deliciousness! Of course it’s not the healthiest of additions to a vegetable side dish, but keep in mind you only need a small amount and cook most of the fat out of it. It’s a small caloric price to pay to convert sprout haters to this nutritious vegetable!

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Roast Sprouts with Crispy Chorizo

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 4 (as a side)

A scattering of crispy, salty chorizo complements the slightly bitter nuttiness of roasted sprouts to form a simple side to convert any sprout hater!

Ingredients

400g brussel sprouts

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

60g chorizo

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Wash the sprouts and trim any excess stems. If you’re lucky enough to get small, young sprouts you can leave them whole, but may want to halve larger sprouts. Keep any leaves that come away while cutting.

Coat the sprouts and leaves with oil and vinegar, then season lightly. Reserve loose leaves to one side. Place sprouts, cut side down where applicable, directly in a roasting pan.

Roast for 10-15 minutes, then add the reserved leaves (these will char into crispy sprout chips!). Continue roasting until the sprouts are tender and charred, about 10 more minutes.

While the sprouts roast, prepare the chorizo. Peel and dice into 5mm cubes. Fry over a high heat to render out fat and caramelise. When cooked, spread on a paper towel to absorb excess fat.

When the sprouts are ready place them in a serving bowl and scatter over the chorizo bits. Serve immediately.

Need some inspiration for finger foods for your independent toddlers?
Here is just what you are looking for and it comes endorsed by a fussy little miss!

Miss One has always loved the taste of the quiches she has tried off our plates. So, together with the search for finger food ideas, the idea for toddler-sized frittatas made in muffin tins was born.

Because I try to avoid adding actual salt to bub’s food, I used some shaved ham together with the cheddar cheese for a great savoury flavour. You really don’t need much ham at all – it’s amazing just how far a little shaved ham goes to giving the frittata a real lift. Leeks are wonderful and sweet when cooked and work really well with egg. And zucchini – I find this vegetable very versatile for cooking for bubs as they are mild flavoured and easy to grate so it’s super easy to hide some essential vitamins into bub’s dinner (zucchini is a great source of vitamin C!).

These are actually very tasty so they definitely could work brilliantly as finger food for your next grown up party (ha! when would that be?!).

Just a tip — to save yourself a precious half hour scrubbing your muffin tins — either make sure your non-stick tins are very well oiled or, better still, use silicon muffin trays! I am definitely going to invest in some of the latter before my next batch of mini frittatas!

Below is my recipe — to save you from having to write it out, save or print the page and then having to file it, why don’t you test out our free recipe app and you’ll never lose your recipes again!